Things are getting "curiouser and curiouser" over at Air America, the failing liberal talk radio network, which has recently lost its Chicago and Los Angeles outlets, but which claims on its own web page to be adding 15 more stations in May.

Last week, paychecks bounced. On air talent made jokes about it. Paychecks bounced again this Wednesday, though by Thursday, management had apparently come up with the cash to pay 'staff.'

Today's Chicago Tribune carries the news that the chairman and co—founder, Evan Cohen, and vice—chairman and investment partner Rex Sorenson resigned Thursday. This follows last week's resignation of  chief executive and co—founder Mark Walsh.

The surviving member of top management, president Joe Stinton, was quoted by the Trib as saying:

"We're on a wild ride," said Jon Sinton, the network's president, acknowledging that Air America has suffered "the typical bumps and bruises faced by any start—up."

"But the bottom line," he said, "is that we are on the air to stay."

The Tribune article reports that Walsh and Cohen purchased 'most' of the network from founder [how many founders and co—founders does this place have, and what do you have to do to be called a co—founder?] Sheldon Drobny. Judging by their reportedly forced sudden departure, it looks as though Walsh and Cohen must have sold majority control to other investors, among whom the Trib numbers 'former broadcasters Thomas Embrescia and Norman Wain, [and] TV pioneer Norman Lear.'

So, it would appear that prior to taking to the airwaves, majority control of the network changed hands twice. That's very intriguing. Given the amount of hype from the press which accompanied its start, one has to wonder what sort of profit [if any] accompanied the flipping. Could it be that canny founding investors sold the hype to others, and took their profits before actual operations commenced?

Another very curious piece of information also enters the public domain via the Chicago Trbune article. It seems that the fledgling network employs 'roughly 100 writers and producers.'

This is an astonishing level of staffing for an operation whose second—biggest station is in Minneapolis, which only runs 3 hours of the network's programming. Having worked in the talk radio industry, I can assure you that very few shows, if any, break into double digits of staff  'writers and producers' at work behind the scenes.

It would seem clear that the third—stage shareholders, the ones holding the bag today, have got a lot to be unhappy about.

Posted by Thomas  05 06 04